Jump On The Baby Train

Not sure if he was serious or not. He’s saving for a Switch though so no room in the budget for inflatable unicorns. Thank goodness, and thank you Westpac for sponsoring this post.

Bucking historical trends, we rather wonderfully didn’t have a baby this year.

We love having a large family but I’ve got to tell you, just the idea of those first six weeks is enough to sink my energy levels even now.

So yeah – YIPPEE! – no new baby for us for the fourth year in a row.

Which, contradictorily, is a shame.

Because apparently said baby would have had a head start in life thanks toWestpac, who is celebrating 200 years since their own ‘birth’ by putting *$200 into any Bump account opened for babies born in 2017. Only thing better than opening a bank account for your baby, knowing you’ll be teaching them to save and budget and maybe get a head start in life, is someone else putting money into it.

Anyone wishing they’d had twins this year?

Now $200 isn’t going to make up the down payment on a house but it’s nothing to be sneezed at. My kids have recently taken to earning a few dollars each week in our ‘study for cash’ home-schooling push. This is where having a Westpac Bump savings account comes in handy so they can set aside their savings and watch them grow week on week. It not only offers a great incentive for babies born this year, it’s also available for all under 18’s and offers a competitive interest rate (so you can teach kids how their money can make money and grow just by sitting in an account).

Firstly, I have to say the kids were super excited to have what they consider serious $$$ at their disposal. It’s so easy to see $10 in your hand and think it can never amount to much so why not just buy whatever but, like prawns, mussels or even baked beans, you get enough of those little buggers together and suddenly you have a very satisfying meal.

And that’s what savings is really. Little bits adding up to something much more substantial.

Which is why it’s so important to teach kids if they forgo something today they can get something better tomorrow.

To really cement this, realising they have between $180 and $210 in their accounts, I decided to take them shopping to see what they thought they could do with that sort of money. As you can see from the photos below, it worked…to a point. I suspect I should have explained the game a bit clearer.

With the Bump savings account they can also set up to six different savings goals within an account, so they can have money going specifically towards something like a gaming console while other money is for a school camp, and other money still is very definitely not to be touched until they’re all grown up and buying a car.

I finished high school with coinage in my pocket. I can assure you, teaching money smarts is a super start in life for your kid, and if my kids are excited about $200 now I can’t wait to see them after they’ve been saving $10 a week for a full year. Or two!

But that’s my money. I much prefer this idea of having Westpac deposit $200 into the Bump savings account of babies born in 2017.

In lieu of having a little Devereaux able to claim this money I’ve decided to do my best to get the word out to anyone who fits the bill, and I’d ask you to do the same. Share this post, or simply send them a message, but do them a favour and let them know a bank wants to give their child money. Babies born in 2017 have until May 2018 to benefit from the $200 deposit when their parents open a new Bump account.

Especially as, if their new little bundle of dirty nappies is still under six weeks old, they probably need some cheering up right about now.

Rather than something expensive, Miss10 started filling her arms with every ‘shiny’ little thing she passed. This was her discovering we weren’t actually going to buy any of it. It was only an exercise to show what she could buy now she’s learned how to save money. Umm, she wasn’t happy. Lucky we’ve got a few more years to teach her about this lolMiss7 found this tiger thing pretty quickly.And just as quickly found something else she wanted instead. This pretty much set the trend for the rest of the day.An RV. Pretty sure we have several pink toy RV’s at home. Our big lap must be having an effect on her. She wants her own trailer park to play with.Miss14 wants everything Harry Potter. She’s churning through the books at the moment. Teaching kids is wonderful when they start to get ‘it’.

2 Comments

Hey Bruce! I’d suggest you read “the barefoot investor”, it’s the best. Although the group of teenagers who received a copy of it from me for Christmas we’re less than impressed, now, but later they’ll be either thanking me or kicking themselves for not having read and followed the advice. 🤣

Thx Bruce & Westpac, I forwarded this post to my niece, she’s expecting in April & was thrilled to hear about it. She lives in North Lakes now but her Mum is an ex-Gympie-ite (of Carkeet stock)……so pleased to share the news around.